Federal File

Praise for the NEA

When retired Gen. Colin Powell spoke at the Republican National
Convention last summer, he took stands on affirmative action and
abortion that contradicted his party's election-year platform.

Now, he's getting cozy with the National Education Association, the
same teachers' union that prominent Republicans vilified throughout the
election season.

Mr. Powell, who retired as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
in 1993, is praising NEA members from his perch as the chairman of the
Presidents' Summit for America's Future, scheduled for later this
month.

Summit officials are recruiting corporations to expand their
donations and volunteer support for schools and other agencies serving
children.

In an interview in the April edition of NEA Today, the
union's monthly newspaper, Mr. Powell is asked what a teachers' union
with 2.2 million members can do to help.

"NEA is doing so much now," responds Mr. Powell, who ruled out a
1996 run for the White House. "Teachers are already mentors. Teachers
are providing a safe place for children every day. ... So NEA is firing
on all eight cylinders right now."

Not all the news was good for the union, however. The retired
general said he supports experiments with tuition vouchers, an idea the
union vociferously opposes.

"Now is the time to take risks to see if we can improve America's
schools," he said.

In the funnies

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley has had one of his
less-glamorous moments memorialized in a caricature from a widely read
comic strip.

In speeches, Mr. Riley has joked about his stage fright that led him
to vomit off stage immediately after reciting his line as a traffic
light in an elementary school play.

The creator of Funky Winkerbean, a syndicated newspaper comic, drew
a panel of the strip's high school band director welcoming Mr.
Riley.

Next to them stood a high school student, dressed as a traffic
light, reciting the line that prompted Mr. Riley's nausea.

The cartoon's creator, Tom Bartiuk, gave Mr. Riley a copy of the
drawing, which never appeared in newspapers, when the Music Educators
National Conference presented an award to the education secretary at a
meeting in Washington last month. Mr. Bartiuk is on the association's
advisory board.